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American Spirit II - Day 97; Drift Snorkel Ahe Pass, Swimming with Sharks & Heading to Rangiroa; Thursday, April 10, 2014



Lots of lightning and thunder at 4:00 AM, which lasted for one hour. So said Joel and Stephen. In the aft cabin, I heard nada.



Stephen up at 7:30 AM; I'm up at 8:30 AM. Joel up last.



Joel and I went in water at 9:30 AM to survey the anchor and chain before trying to weight anchor. A 12 inch remora was swimming under boat, looking to attach itself to our boat. Remora attach themselves to sharks and live off their scraps. We've had remora attach themselves to our boat before, thinking we're a large fish. Took us 30 minutes to get anchor up. Not bad. Nexus had similar experience, but Vivo took 1 to 1 1/2 hours to free their anchor. They were anchored in deeper water, 70 feet, so more difficult, in part because they couldn't see the chain and anchor on the bottom. Joel hopped in the water and helped direct the anchor chain retrieval process. Their chain was on one side of a giant coral head and the mooring line was on the other. So pulling the mooring line to free the anchor was not going to work. Once they got free we all motored to Ahe pass, where we were going to anchor and drift snorkel the pass on the incoming tide. However, none of us could find a place to safely anchor, so we decided to keep at least one person on each boat while the others boarded Nexus's dingy (really a motor boat, it,s so large). to drift snorkel the pass.



Stephen made three runs in the pass, Joel one pass and I had two passes. During our drift snorkels Stephen saw 3 sharks, one white tip and two black tip; and one moray eel; and he said one of the black tip sharks was 10 feet in length. Big! That size is a man eater. Joel saw a white tip and black tip shark and a zebra type parrot fish; and I saw 3 black tipped sharks, one of the first drift snorkel and two on the second trip thru the pass. Two of the sharks I saw were between me and the north side of the pass; that last shark was between me and the south side of the pass, and it swam alongside and then down the slope of the pass that angled 45% down to about 50 feet. The shark then swam across the flat, white bottom of the pass. I also saw one moray eel, trumpet fish, multi colored clams, etc. Visibility in the pass was 150 feet. Extraordinary. The first shark I saw was approaching Stephen, who had his back turned to it. After shouting Stephen's name in the water, the shark broke contact and swam away. I may have gotten the encounter on video with my Go Pro camera. We'll (literally) see. On the north side of the pass was some pearl farm debris, ropes and mooring balls attached to the bottom, floating in the water. Eerie. Looked like a World War II mine field. On my second drift snorkel, the current had turned and instead of going into the lagoon there was a one knot current going out. So we had to swim against this current to get back to the lagoon.



While Joel and Stephen drift snorkeled the pass, I drove the boat thru the 3 knot outgoing rip current at the entrance of the pass. It was so much fun that I did this twice. Michael on Vivo made some comment on the radio about my forgetting to take my medication for attention deficit disorder this morning. The boat would swerve left and right as the current caught it. I got out my video camera and shot some footage as I went thru the 'rapids.'



Lunch consisted of freeze dried: Beef and Noodles. At about 2:45 PM all three boats headed out and went thru the pass, with a 3 knot current against us. Rangiroa, our next destination, was 90 miles away; and was close enough that we would have to go slow to get there by 8:00 AM. No point in getting there 3 or 4 hours before the tide and in the dark and then just waiting around. Later, three other boats joined us in our flotilla to Rangiroa: Flomaida, Ghost and Dingy.



The sunset at 6:10 PM was magnificent. One of the best of our circumnavigation so far. The sun, behind the clouds above the horizon, looked like it was on fire. And unlike many times, our cameras actually captured this 'on fire horizon' picture quite well.



Dinner consisted of two freeze dried dinners: Sweet and Sour Port and New Orleans Style Rice with Shrimp and Rice; peas and carrots; chilled fruit cocktail; and crackers with butter, jelly and peanut butter.



The moon was 2/3 full, casting a nice light on the water. Enough light that you didn't need a flashlight to see what needing finding in the cockpit.



Around 7:00 PM I felt motivated and defrosted the freezer. Since we were motor sailing in the light winds, its always best to defrost the freezer then because it takes a lot of energy to bring the freezer back to it normal operating temperature of 20 degrees. To defrost the freezer, I took hot water from the sink and poured it on the metal cooling units. When I was done the freezer temperature was 56 degrees.



Later during my 9:00 PM watch, I had to drain the refrigerator. Apparently when I poured all the hot water into the freezer, instead of draining into the bilge it drained into the bottom of our refrigerator. I had 2 inches of water in the bottom of the frig. In the future, I'll put a plug in the bottom of the refrigerator and that will eliminate that problem from occurring again. After taking all the food and bottles out of the refrigerator and draining it with a scoop and then a large sponge, the temperature had risen to 46 degrees from 40. No problem.



Brian Fox


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